What you need to know
- Bard is now a supercharged AI assistant, with real-time info from Maps, YouTube, Hotels, and Flights at its fingertips, though you can disable these extensions anytime.
- Bard will also be able to access your Gmail, Docs, and Drive to help you find, summarize, and answer questions about your personal content with ease.
- Google has added a "Google it" button to Bard in order to double-check the AI's responses in English with Search.
Bard is now a one-stop shop for all your travel and planning needs, with real-time info from various Google apps, including Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Hotels, and Flights. Whether you're planning your next vacation or just trying to figure out what to do over the weekend, the AI system has you covered with Bard Extensions.
Google announced in a blog post today that Extensions are rolling out in English. This means the generative AI has now got your back even when it comes to your personal stuff by accessing your Gmail, Docs, and Drive to help you find, summarize, and answer questions about personal content, as long as you grant it permission.
Bard has a dedicated page for all these extensions, which are enabled by default. That said, you can turn them off at any time. If you leave them turned on, Bard will be able to access and manage your emails and documents from Google Workspace.
The AI will also share parts of your conversation and other relevant information with Workspace, which may be used to improve its services. When Bard uses other extensions, your Workspace content may be shared if it’s included in your conversation.
That said, the search giant promises not to make your Gmail, Docs, and Drive content visible to its human reviewers. Moreover, this information will not be used to show you ads or train Bard.
Bard's also got a fact-checker in its pocket, thanks to the power of Google Search. Just click the "G" button on any highlighted statement in English to double-check it against information available on the web.
The AI can learn from conversations that other people have shared with you. So, if someone sends you a link to a Bard conversation, you can pick up where they left off and continue the conversation in your own account.
Finally, Bard now has even more features that you can use in all 40 languages that support the AI. For example, you can upload images with Google Lens, get Google Search images in Bard's responses, and choose how you want Bard to respond to you.
These new features make Bard even more powerful and versatile, with Google chalking them up to the updates it introduced to the PaLM 2 model.
